November 11, 2024 • 87 mins
***SPOILERS*** On this episode we dive into Leather & Lark by Brynne Weaver. We'll follow Lark, a serial killer, who as she embarks on a sham of a marriage to Lachlan, a contract killer, in order to save the ones she loves. Join us as we break down this book and discuss each riveting and spicy chapter!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And he starts going through her stuff and then he starts trying to get in her head and
(00:14):
think like her and where she would hide stuff.
And he's looking around and he sees a Constantine poster, which she's obsessed with Constantine.
So he looks behind it and there is a literal fucking hole in the wall.
A literal fucking hole.
Like she just carved out a hole in the wall.
(00:34):
And he pulls out a box and he starts looking through it and he's like, what in the fuck
am I looking at?
And she comes home.
And he's like, hey, we need to talk.
She kind of starts like brushing it off and she starts trying to warm up some of the like,
(00:59):
some of the muffins from like her family's company.
And she's brushing it off and saying, I've had a long day.
I'm tired.
I don't want to talk anymore.
This is about the Claire thing.
Like I don't care.
And he goes, no, no, we need to talk about this.
And he starts like holding up objects out of this box.
(01:22):
And I forget what the first thing that he held up was.
Do you remember?
No, I do not.
So he's holding up these objects and then he holds, there's an object that he first
(01:42):
holds up and she's like, I don't know what that is.
I don't know.
And then he holds up these maracas, these like homemade maracas.
They're not like store bought.
Like she crafted these.
And he describes them as the bulbs look and feel similar to that of skin.
(02:07):
And then she's like, they're maracas.
Like do you not recognize maracas?
Again, she's trying to like play him for a fool and make him feel stupid.
Did you find it?
I didn't, but I found something that you're going to giggle at.
What?
So it's like a fandom universe that I clicked on.
(02:29):
It's like all the characteristics and attributes and all that to each character in the book.
Yeah.
Well, it shows their nicknames.
What is it?
Duchess.
Wonder Barbie.
Meadowlark.
Meadowlark.
And fecking catastrophe.
F-E-C-K-I-N.
You fecking catastrophe.
Yeah, that did make me giggle a little.
(02:50):
But he's holding up these maracas and she's trying to make him look stupid.
Did you find it?
I did.
What is it?
A finger in a jar with a ring on it.
(03:12):
Because she couldn't remove the ring off the finger.
I thought that was the last thing that he found.
There was something smaller.
It says it's the first one.
There were three things.
What three things does that say?
(03:33):
It says the jar, the maracas...
Oh, it actually doesn't even show the last one.
We'll move past it.
So he holds up these maracas and when she starts just playing it cool, he starts shaking
(04:01):
them and they start rattling and he's like, so if I just do this and then he smashes it
and dumps the contents in his hand, he's like, yep, I expected to find that, but I was really
hoping it wouldn't be that.
And it is human teeth.
The maracas were made of human skin filled with human teeth.
(04:24):
She's like, she kind of again tries to just play stupid, like it's totally normal and
she's laughing so awkwardly and uncomfortably throughout all of this.
And then he goes, okay, what is this?
And he holds up the jar that has a finger in it and a ring on the finger.
(04:45):
And she's like, it's a ring.
And he goes, it's attached to a finger.
She goes, well, yeah, I couldn't get the finger off.
I cannot with this fucking woman because she's just like, oh, it's a finger.
(05:07):
There's a finger in the jar.
And then he asks the question, Lark, are you like, are you like a fucking serial killer?
And she, she specifically states, of course not.
(05:29):
No, I'm more like a, I'm more like a multiple deleter.
I lost my shit because throughout this entire book, she is adamant.
She is not a serial killer.
She's a multiple deleter and anytime he tries to refer to her as a serial killer, she gives
(05:53):
him a death glare.
But yeah, so she admits to it and then she just kind of leaves the apartment.
He takes Bentley and he tries to chase after her and they're in the stairwell and she goes,
(06:21):
I'm not coming back up there just for you to judge me.
He's like, well, when I find out my wife is a serial and she glares at him, he goes, multiple
deleter.
I feel like that warrants a conversation.
And she goes, no, it don't.
No, it doesn't.
You're going to judge me.
I'm not in the mood to be judged.
This is why I don't tell people.
I'm going to leave now.
(06:41):
And that's the end of it.
She just walks away and he's just left there stunned in the stairwell.
And then Bentley makes like a groaning noise, like Bentley's calling him an idiot.
But then he takes the dog for a walk.
(07:03):
And that's essentially how that chapter ends.
And then we get into them meeting the parents.
Well, they're meeting Lark's parents.
(07:25):
And they spend some time getting to know each other, just basic information things, which
again he tries to touch on the multiple deleter thing.
And she doesn't give into that.
She's like, hey, let's just stick to the basic information from each other.
(07:53):
He's like, okay, fine, whatever.
He gives in.
And then they go to this brunch and they pick up Auntie Ethel, who by the way is a big fat
liar and she is good at it.
I love her.
I'll say it every time we say her name.
So they all ride together to Lark's family home.
(08:17):
And as soon as she walks in the door, she goes to try to introduce Lachlan, but she
can't, she chickens out and she can't say that he is her husband.
And she's like, this is my Lachlan.
And then Auntie Ethel pops up behind her.
She's like, husband, dear, that's her husband.
(08:43):
Leave it to Ethel.
And so the sister freaks out, husband, husband, husband, like just over and over says it.
And then the mom comes in, Lark's mom enters the chat and she's like, hey, what's going
(09:09):
on?
And then her face kind of falters when she sees Lachlan because at this point they don't
know about any of this.
Or that Lark may know that they were planning on killing Lachlan.
So she's really surprised to see the man they were thinking about knocking off in her foray.
And then she gets the surprise from the sister that they are married.
(09:35):
And Ethel keeps the mom in check.
So before she can really say anything negative, Ethel always keeps popping up saying some
positive comment before the mother can say anything negative.
And then Lachlan pipes up, he's like, it's not as strange as it sounds.
(10:01):
Let's take this bottle of wine or the whiskey that I brought and let's talk about this.
So they all go into the dining room and the mom and sister explain that Lachlan is her
husband and he is just as shocked.
But he's a little more reserved in his commenting.
(10:24):
But they get their dinner and they've explained how they met, which they do admit that they
met because Lachlan threw her in a trunk.
They don't explain why.
The stepdad is asking Lachlan questions about their relationship, how they met.
(10:47):
And then dessert is brought in and Ethel being the hot sir that she is, just has to take
this moment and say, so now that you're through interrogating the boy, let's discuss the Leviathan
contract.
And they, the stepdad's like, we don't have one.
(11:09):
We're not going to have one.
And she says that the Montague family now will be in business with the Leviathan.
And Lark's mother speaks up and says, I'm not signing off on that.
Or she said, I haven't signed off on that.
(11:31):
And Ethel says, that's because I never gave you the power to do so.
Damn Ethel.
And then to drive the knife in even further, she pulls out a packet and hands it to Lark
and says, I am giving the power to Lark.
She will now be the secretary of these Montague, Montague muffins.
(11:59):
And Lark is stunned by this and everybody turns their head to Lark and then Lark's like,
ah, she throws up her hand.
She's like, I don't fucking know.
I didn't do this.
And then yeah, it becomes like a whole thing.
But Lark, knowing what she has to do in order to help Lachlan retire to hold up her end
(12:22):
of the bargain, she has to accept.
And so that is what she does.
And then now is where the argument happens about her marriage.
Because they start saying that it is a conflict of interest for her to hire her the company
(12:44):
that her husband works for.
And Ethel in her smart ass ways, like we're in the muffin business, dear.
We're not in any other business.
Conflict of interest.
We're not lawyers.
We're not doctors.
Sit down and shut up, basically.
Like we're tired about muffins here.
(13:05):
Chill out.
And then Lark also pipes up and says, well, Lachlan is retiring soon, so it won't matter
anyways.
Problem solved.
Everyone's happy.
They say, no, they're not happy.
And then they start ragging on the marriage.
And the father finally speaks up and says, you must really love him.
(13:33):
He must really be something to you.
And she says, yes, if I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't have married him.
And for some reason, the dad decides to not to finally speak his mind and says, he's a
(13:53):
killer, Lark.
And Lark is like, if we're all going to be honest here, he's not the only one in this
family at this table who has done the same thing.
And that makes everybody sit in silence, frozen, waiting for the father's response because
(14:16):
it's like a holy shit.
Did she just say the unspeakable thing?
And yes, she did.
She finally went there, but she knew it was going to ping them.
And then he says, Lark Montague.
And she says, Kane, daddy.
(14:40):
My name is Lark Kane.
And as she throws her license down on the table and says, I've already, I will stick
with Montague for now publicly, but I've already started getting my name changed on everything.
And she shows them the license where her name is changed to Lark Kane.
(15:03):
And after this, they decide to just part.
So all three of them, Lark, Lachlan, and Ethel, leave.
The father walks into their door and he makes a comment about, you know, I hope you know
what you're doing.
(15:24):
And then Lachlan assures him that he takes his vows very seriously and he will do whatever
he has to do to protect and provide for Lark.
The dad shakes his hand, they go on their way.
And then there's a conversation in the car where Ethel says that the driver's license
(15:47):
was a good touch.
It's revealed that Lark never took her stepfather's name, even though he was Lark's father for
most of her life because her father passed away at a young age.
So she never took his last name because she never wanted to give up that last piece of
(16:12):
her father.
She didn't want to ever forget what he gave her.
So she had vowed to never change her last name.
And they disclose this to Lachlan.
And he's looking at her in the rearview mirror, but she won't look at him.
(16:36):
And then Ethel speaks up and says that she sacrificed the last part of her father for
you.
Your wife broke her own heart to save your life.
And that hit me hard because what the fuck?
(17:01):
What did she gain?
What is she gaining?
She's literally giving up everything.
That one part kind of... it hit in a different way.
Well, you relate to it in the same way.
Yeah, yeah, true.
(17:22):
Because I can get the last name being the only thing that you got left.
You're really good playing with emotions with that, by the way, Brynn.
Appreciate it.
She tapped into some stuff here.
She did.
(17:42):
Now we meet...
We are on our way to meet Leander.
So Clark is at the nursing home and she is taking care of Ethel and Ethel has to get
an IV, but she doesn't like needles.
And she's staring off into the doorway of the room and right before Clark turns to look,
(18:07):
Ethel tells her to sing her a song.
And so she does.
And then suddenly in the middle of the song, Ethel says, hey, I want some of those hard
candies out there by the nurse's station.
Clark's like, okay, that's weird, but she's always asking me to get random shit, so okay.
So she gets up and then she goes out there and we see Lachlan leaving.
(18:32):
And she yells to Lachlan, but he just stands there frozen in the hallway.
He doesn't turn around.
She asks him, are you okay?
He nods, doesn't say anything.
She starts walking to him and he just kind of glances over his shoulder.
He won't turn around to face her.
And she asks what he was doing there and essentially he came to ask her to go to Leander's to do
(19:02):
their meeting over the contracts.
And at first she, he offers to bring her with him, but she decides that she's just going
to take an Uber.
And he leaves and it was such a weird interaction.
And she turns around, she goes back into Ethel's room and Ethel tells her to kick rocks and
(19:26):
go.
She's a tired old lady.
She wants to go home.
Ethel planned that.
I just want to say this.
How did Lark not catch on to every time that Ethel was scheming on her?
Every time she went to go get something, there was something that Ethel was wanting her to
see her here.
Right?
But apparently that was normal for Ethel throughout her whole life, so not everything had to have
(19:50):
been a scam.
I don't know, I feel like after the lotion I would be on hollered at all times.
Right.
But she schemed this.
She saw Lachlan in the doorway and she didn't want, I think she wanted Lachlan to see another
side of Lark, which was the sweet, sensitive sad that was singing a love song to her ill
(20:17):
grand, her ill aunt.
And then when she saw Lachlan leaving, she sent Lark on her way.
But she schemed this and she pretty much tells Lark to kick rocks and go to the meeting.
She's a tired old lady.
She doesn't want her there, which she's being completely sarcastic.
(20:42):
But she leaves, Lark leaves and she goes and Lachlan's waiting outside of Leander's house
for her.
And he has a whole conversation with her about, don't do this, don't do this, don't accept
anything from me.
If he orders pizza, we're leaving.
(21:06):
And oh, I forgot to mention part of this deal for Leander to let Lachlan go, he demanded
that he have fresh muffins baked by Auntie Ethel herself.
So Lark brought the muffins that Ethel made.
(21:31):
And they have this conversation where he tells her what to do, what not to do, if there's
fresh pizza and we're gone.
They walk inside and he's telling her how he's kind of how Leander is kind of unhinged.
She's kind of weird.
(21:52):
As if on cue, Leander pops out of a doorway with a gun, points it at her and says, bang,
bang, bang.
And as soon as this happens, Lachlan shoves her behind him in a very protective way and
(22:13):
he's yelling at Leander like, what the fuck, put the gun down before you kill yourself
and all of us with you.
And he starts laughing and Lachlan said to quit trying to scare her and she says, you
gotta try harder than that, but she also in her monologue says that her heart is beating
a million miles an hour.
(22:39):
They are escorted to the pub room where the whole dart situation and the beer pizza tooth
funneling was happening.
They're-
The dirt gagging sound?
Yeah.
They're sitting there, they're negotiating.
She had given him the muffins and he's eating the muffins as they're all talking and he's
(23:02):
drinking a beer.
And then they get through negotiating, they make a deal.
Leander stands up and then he falls flat on his ass.
Lachlan's like, shit.
And Lark says, and I quote, yeah, I kind of thought that might happen.
(23:29):
Lachlan's like, you drugged the muffin?
She goes, well, technically Ethel did.
I didn't know for sure that they were, but she had specifically said for us not to eat
them.
So I had a suspicion and he was like, you weren't going to tell me this, what if I had
(23:50):
had one?
And she plays it off.
I mean, I just kind of figured she wouldn't.
Just, you know, let it play out.
But with all of this deal and contract, they are given permission to use the resources
(24:10):
to find out who was really killing off her family.
And so with Leander passed out, they just go into the facilities area where all the
technology is and they start digging around.
They don't really find anything, but it's a good start.
(24:33):
So since we are getting emotional in this chapter, this is where Lachlan finally apologizes
for putting Lark in the trunk at the beginning of the book.
They are having a nice conversation and Lachlan tells her he's not going to ask her to forgive
(24:58):
him because he wants to earn her forgiveness.
He doesn't want it to just be a, I'm sorry, it's okay, it's over.
He wanted to do whatever he could to earn her forgiveness.
Which is so sweet.
It really is.
Most people are like, I just want you to hurry up and forgive me so we can get this over
(25:19):
with.
Like I apologize, we're good now, right?
He was like, no.
So they're talking and I should say they're in the car.
I believe this is when they are leaving Leander's.
I think so.
So they're driving and they're talking and Lachlan stops at this place and really doesn't
(25:46):
know what's going on.
This is when Lachlan tells her he can tell that she hasn't been sleeping and this is
a sleep retreat.
He brought her here to just let go of all of her responsibilities and relax and just
chill out.
Don't think, rest.
(26:06):
He tells her that he'll be available all weekend to call him if she needs him.
Well, Lark gets upset because she thinks that Lachlan dropping her off at the sleep retreat
means he wants another woman.
(26:27):
He's using dropping her off as an excuse to be with someone else.
This is one of those real jealous moments.
Like for real.
Why are you so okay with leaving me?
Yeah I feel that.
She had like a whole bunch of thoughts of like why is he doing this?
Nobody's ever done this for me and then her mind went to the jealous sector of her brain
(26:52):
and I was like.
Literally.
Instantly.
Yeah.
I thought he was just trying to get rid of her so he could actually get some because
he's not getting any from her.
But there's a conversation about that too.
Yeah.
So he tells her that he's not trying to be with another woman.
(27:14):
He takes his vows seriously which if we all knew Irish in the beginning we would know
that he did.
And he lets her know like you know he's doing this for her.
He doesn't want anybody else.
He walks her inside.
Or actually they are still talking and he tells her you know just because the situation
(27:38):
and circumstances of our marriage are unusual like I want to be here.
And then he walks her inside and she thanks him and then he pulls her into a hug and kisses
her temple.
Which for most females is just.
It made me want a hug.
(27:59):
It made me want to like go to Jessie and get a hug and a forehead kiss because it's just
so sweet.
It's the little things.
There's something so like pure about it.
Yeah.
So after he's all sweet and stuff he leaves the retreat and he does something to keep
(28:27):
busy for a few hours and waits for Lark to call him.
He knew she was going to call him.
He was just waiting.
And when she does he lets her know that he is actually sitting outside of this retreat
waiting on her.
There's excitement in her voice too.
Like he hears her wrestle the covers to get out of bed and she's like excited and he said
(28:50):
he heard her squeal.
That part made me laugh because I was like that's such a girly thing.
I would have done that too.
And then that's when he lets her know that this sleep retreat is just a really good alibi
for what they're actually going to do.
(29:13):
Sweet Lachlan.
Sweet sweet Lachlan.
He has arranged.
Yes very much so.
He has arranged for his associate Connor to find who we figure out was Lark's search on
(29:33):
the database.
It is Dr. Lewis Campbell and we will find out here in a second who exactly this man
is.
But he is tied to a chair in his own home.
And that is when Lachlan brings Larkin and shows him or shows her I'm sorry shows her
(29:55):
Dr. Campbell.
This is when we find out that this is actually the man that was the headmaster at the was
it private school or boarding school.
I think it was a boarding school.
He was the headmaster of the boarding school that Lark attended when she was younger.
(30:19):
He is told by Lachlan that he was taken because of him protecting a teacher named Mr. Verden
when allegations of abuse were made against him.
It was a long list of allegations.
Like real formal complaints by other students and other teachers and nothing was ever done.
(30:45):
Yes.
And that is when Campbell tells Lachlan that he cannot be killed because he made a deal
with the Montagues to help them cover up Verden's disappearance and he is willing to give evidence
over to the FBI.
However, Lachlan reveals he's already taken the evidence from Campbell's hiding spot.
(31:10):
I think it's worth noting that it was Sloan.
Like Sloan made the complaint.
Yeah.
About like she was one of the complainants about all of the students who started acting
(31:32):
weird after taking this professor's art class.
Yeah.
I mean, amongst a bunch of other complainants, but Sloan was one of them.
This is when Lark enters the room and sees Campbell and he begs her for help.
(31:55):
And we'll find out here in a second why that's absolutely ridiculous that he would ask her
of all people for help.
She walks over to him and she proceeds to show his mouth shut, which is it's got to
be symbolism for the fact that he kept his mouth shut over this teacher.
(32:16):
Yeah.
With gold string.
Yes.
I just thought that was a funny detail.
It was like shimmery gold string.
She is very artistic.
She loves shimmery glitter and stickers.
I cannot do glitter.
Glitter is the herpes of art.
Once you get it, you cannot get rid of it.
Yeah, I know.
I hate it.
Sorry to glitter lovers.
(32:42):
As she's sewing up Campbell's mouth, she starts to tell Lachlan and Campbell what exactly
her motive is behind this.
She lets them know how Sloane helped her fix her uniform after what Verdon did to her.
(33:06):
And after Sloane got rid of Verdon.
It just.
I don't have like, I guess the when you find out everything that's going on, it kind of
just hits you.
Like.
It all falls together, I guess.
Yeah.
(33:26):
It's fucked up.
Yes, very much so.
So after she's done doing her little arts and crafts on his mouth.
Lachlan offers Lark a gun and she proceeds to shoot Campbell.
Lark stays to clean up and he sends Connor, his associate, to send Lark back to the sleep
(33:56):
retreat.
After enough time for Lachlan to have cleaned up the mess.
Hours.
Lark calls and asks him to read Dewar so she can fall asleep.
And the sweetest thing in the world, I have to say it again, I know you said it a second
ago and I just have to say this, she's obsessed with Constantine.
(34:18):
Like this is her shit.
He actually reads the screenplay of Constantine to her until she falls asleep.
And then once she's sleeping, he mutes his phone and stays on the phone with her just
in case she wakes up.
He wants to be there.
So romantic.
(34:40):
So sweet.
Also want to say in case by the time you've watched the Butcher and Blackbird episode
and this episode, if it hasn't been made abundantly clear, Sloane was the one who knocked off
the teacher.
Yeah.
(35:03):
Because she found Lark crying with torn up with a torn up uniform and Sloane re-sewed
it and Sloane was over it.
No none of her complaints were taken seriously.
So she just handled it herself and Lark made a vow that nobody would ever have to do that
(35:27):
for her again and that she would owe Sloane her protection from then on out.
And that is how she ended up becoming what she is.
Yep.
That's how both of them became what they are.
Two friends born out of trauma become serial killers.
I tell you they would have never went to that boarding school.
(35:49):
They would have been okay.
They would have never known each other.
There'd be a lot of-
The whole effect is real.
It truly is.
One little thing.
That's all it takes.
Crazy.
But we move forward and she eventually comes back from the retreat and we kind of skip
(36:16):
board a little bit.
We find Lachlan in his leather shop.
This is the first time we're actually seeing the leather shop.
And a guy walks in under the name Abe.
Or by the name of Abe.
And he brings in a saddle, claims that he had an appointment for the next day but he
(36:39):
was already in the neighborhood so he just decided to bring it in.
He's supposed to be getting a redesign on this old family heirloom saddle.
At first everything seems fine and then the guy starts kind of giving Lachlan the creeps.
He's like, this dude's weird.
(37:00):
I don't really want to turn my back to him.
And he turns around, Lachlan turns around to grab a pen and a paper to write down some
of the things that he wants done.
And so as soon as he turns around he hears the bell and in walks Lark.
(37:26):
Lark introduces herself, Abe introduces himself, they kind of talk about writing for a second.
And then Lachlan is getting really uncomfortable by this situation and by Abe.
So he tells Abe that they have a prior engagement that they need to get to that if he wants
(37:48):
to keep his original time the next day that they can do that.
And Abe tells him, no I think I've already told you everything I need done, we're good
here.
And they leave.
Abe leaves, Lachlan leaves, Lark leaves, Lachlan hands Lark the keys.
(38:09):
This is probably my favorite part in the entire book.
I was physically cackling in my chair when I read this.
So they're leaving because Lark has a concert that she is putting on, like she's got a gig
(38:33):
with her band.
And so Lachlan gives her the keys to go start the car, she gets in, she pushes the clutch,
she turns on the car, and he is loading boxes up that were left for them.
When she turns on the car, this is like every audiobook woman's like worst nightmare is
(39:01):
somebody turning on our vehicle or our stereo and our phones being hooked up to it in the
middle of a book.
Well for Lachlan this fear became reality.
And when she turns on the car there is some heavy smutting going on.
(39:22):
And I mean heavy, it reads it to you in the book.
And she's like, holy shit, no way.
And then she texts Sloane and she says, I finally understand why you read smut books.
Sloane says I need more context so she sends her a recording of a part of it.
(39:45):
And Sloane says, oh my god, I told him to read those books, I just never thought he'd
actually do it.
They have a small conversation about it and then Lachlan starts walking over and he goes
to open the door but Lark pushes the lock button and he's like, what the hell?
(40:06):
And she turns up the radio full blast so he has to hear it.
So he can hear why she's locking him out.
And she said that you cannot hear him but she sees him mouthing the words fuck fuck
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
And she's messing with him and then eventually she unlocks the door.
(40:30):
He as soon as she unlocks it whips the door open and she gets out and she starts messing
with him about it.
And he's, she's like being sexually promiscuous about the situation, like kind of picking
at him but also kind of, you know, doing the blue balls flirt that girls do.
(40:54):
And he's getting it.
And so she walks around to the other side, they drive in silence for a while because
he's completely ignoring her and all of her jokes.
And then they park and again, this, everything about this is just hilarious to me.
(41:17):
They park and she tells him that he can go in through the back with her.
She'll take him in the back door.
She says it just like that and then he says back door and she goes yeah back door.
(41:37):
And shit, stop for a second.
My headphones are about to die so we're gonna have to kind of like get through this.
That's fine because I need to go to bed like just very soon.
I'm just throwing that out there because my headphones might die before this ends and
(42:02):
that's not good because this is recording through my headphones.
Back to...
She tells him it's crowded out front, I'm gonna take you in the back door and he says
back door?
Question mark.
(42:22):
She's like yeah back door.
And he's kind of being weird about it and he's like gripping the steering wheel really
hard because he's like taking this in a different way and she's acting all innocent about it
like do you have a problem with back doors?
Like is that the rear entrance?
Is that like weird to you?
(42:45):
She's acting like she doesn't know what she's doing but she knows what she's doing.
And she gets out of the car, he gets out of the car.
She was like I happen to like the back door.
She then jokes with him about it being anal and she starts talking about how she likes
anal.
(43:06):
There was even this one time where her and this one guy and then he grabs her by the
throat, pins her up against a wall, and tells her she needs to stop.
And she's like why do you not like anal?
He was like that's not my problem.
And then he says I cannot bear to hear about the way some other guy fucked my wife or the
(43:28):
way that she might have fucked him.
I had to turn on a fan after that part because it got real hot.
It got real hot, real fast.
I needed a fan.
And then there's a lot of sexual tension that happens right here.
(43:51):
He's got her pinned up against the wall and she starts grinding on him and he's trying
to control himself but he doesn't want to engage in anything sexual until she has forgiven
him because he doesn't want to start on another path until he has earned her forgiveness.
(44:12):
Which is romantic.
Sweet.
But they get busted out in the alley doing this and by one of her bandmates.
So they go inside.
She does the performance but she had given him a gift and it was a remote.
(44:33):
And he turns on the remote while she's singing and then he realizes about 30 seconds in it's
a vibrator and he's controlling it.
I just want to add this real quick.
The singing is in the audiobook and if you are listening to the audiobook it's very cringey.
(44:55):
I wished it would just quit already.
It feels like it lasted forever.
I read it in the book so it was very different for me because I was switching between the
audiobook and the physical copy.
But I can imagine.
(45:18):
Because it's not a real singer.
It was really cringey.
I really wish they wouldn't have put that one in there.
That was literally the only bad thing about the book was the singing.
If you're reading the hard copy it's not that bad.
If you're listening to the audiobook be warned.
But in the song she does say that she forgives him.
(45:40):
So that is probably why they still put it in.
Because there is an important factor in there.
She talks about how she forgives him and she dedicated the song to him.
But he's playing with this toy and she comes on stage with a cello between her legs.
(46:02):
She's throwing that out there.
That was the most bluntly anything that we have said has been put this entire time out
of all of the videos.
That was so cool.
I was tired of beating around the bush okay.
I'm just gonna fucking say it.
(46:27):
So that happens and then he disappears.
And so when she gets off the stage she thinks that she went too far and that he left during
the performance.
So she goes into a bathroom backstage and is crying in the mirror really being down
about herself.
(46:47):
Thinking that she just fucked it all up.
And then he busts in saying that he had been waiting for her in her dressing room.
And that if she had checked her phone first for his text message she would have seen that.
And then she looks at the text and she's like oh shit.
(47:11):
And then she asks if it was a problem that they did what they did and he was like you
think I liked that?
And she was like did you not like that?
And he's like you think that I enjoyed watching you come on stage in front of 500 people and
(47:32):
I'm not even able to touch you?
No, I'm not okay with that.
And this leads us immediately into like spiciness.
They immediately go at it.
Because he asks, so you really forgive me?
She says yes.
(47:53):
He says I've been tested, are you on the pill?
She says yes.
And then they just get it on.
I mean it is a fast conversation.
And they just get after it.
And I want to say that they don't exactly have full on sex right here.
But he gets her off another time using some mouth work.
(48:20):
They go home and then they do it and he gets spicy.
This is where like the degradation comes in.
Because she tells him I am your wife but when we do it I am not your wife I am your whore.
(48:41):
To give you an idea of how this goes.
There is some hands and knees crawling, begging, whore.
She wanted to be treated like a whore pretty much.
And that is how the entire sex scene goes.
So if you're not into that be warned.
(49:02):
If you're into that you're gonna love this.
It was a great scene.
The one part that got me though was the ice.
I had a bad experience with ice and this triggered that memory.
(49:24):
You just triggered the memory in my brain when you said that.
It was a very bad experience.
Oh my gosh.
It was a very bad experience.
It's not even my memory but you triggered it as soon as you said that.
(49:45):
It was such a bad experience.
I totally wish I would have been thinking about that when I read that because I would
have been giggling.
I was not giggling I was crossing my legs.
Oh my gosh.
That's how you know that there is no TMI between the two of us.
(50:06):
None.
Not at all.
And now unless Jessie edits this out the world's gonna know.
For those of you listening Ally just spit out her drink.
She's choking.
I did not spit it out.
I almost did.
You said that as soon as I took a sip.
(50:30):
Good times.
Sorry, bud.
I'm not even sure if Jessie knows.
I don't know.
He's about to learn something.
Him and the world if he doesn't edit this out.
Jessie leave it in please.
(50:51):
You shouldn't have even said anything.
I couldn't not say something.
Moving forward there is some ice that is involved so if you have PTSD with some ice and some
sex maybe skip forward in this scene a little bit.
(51:15):
So moving forward from that they spent all night doing it.
I think it's real spicy.
And then the next morning...sorry, Ally is still trying to like get herself together
(51:37):
over there.
The next morning they...Lachlan, Lark, and Connor, Lachlan's work associate, are going
to find out what happened to Ethel's right hand man, Stan Tremblay.
(52:05):
Because at first they think that he might have been a suspect but then they find out
that he is deceased, like recently deceased.
So they decide to break into a morgue.
And they do.
Connor sets off a fire alarm.
Ice counting down for them.
And they break in and they go and they pull a little dude out of the morgue.
(52:28):
Like out of the slot in the morgue.
I forget what it's called.
The like refrigeration on the wall.
This is going so bad.
Fuck it, y'all know what I'm talking about.
The morgue refrigerators, you know.
The thingy on the wall with the handle and the pull out bed.
(52:49):
You know how it gets cold.
Fuck you.
You all know what I'm talking about.
Jesus.
The human refrigerator that's in the morgue.
We got it.
They pull dude out, okay.
And they need to get his index finger and his thumb in order to hack into his personal
(53:18):
security files.
I'm confused.
I thought they took his eyeball.
They did, but they also had to take his thumb and his finger.
I guess the only thing that stuck with me was the eyeball because she was like we should
have totally got Sloane to do this.
(53:39):
They also had to take the pointer finger and the thumb because it was like a biometric
scanner so it was both those and then the eyes.
I guess the eye just stuck with me because of that.
Probably.
But they pull him out and they have to get his pointer, his index finger, and his thumb.
(54:01):
They get to chopping which is kind of...
It should have been odd for Lark because she grew up with him and he's the one that like
cleaned up the mess at the boarding school for her so he was really there for her.
But she described it as therapeutic and that concerned Lachlan and Connor who was listening
(54:22):
on the earpieces.
So they get the fingers no problem but now they have to use an enucleation spoon to dig
out dude's eyeball because in order to get into his security files they need his fingerprints
and a retinal scanner.
(54:45):
So Lachlan starts digging at the eye and Lark makes a comment that she really should have
enlisted Sloane for this because that was her specialty and not theirs and Lark is gagging.
And Lachlan is gagging.
And Connor is in their ear telling them to just pretend it's like a gumball or a piece
(55:10):
of candy.
Like making references to food because again...
Of course.
Bryn Weaver has to ruin food.
And they're both yelling at each other and yelling at him to shut up and please stop
talking about food as they're gagging and like vomiting into their mouths because they
can't get DNA anywhere.
(55:33):
So this goes on for a while.
They're really struggling to get this eyeball out.
I don't feel like it should have been this hard.
Or maybe I'm just really fucked up in the head.
They were probably gagging more than they were scooping.
Evie Probably.
But eventually they get the eyeball out and then Connor decides to tell them they didn't
(55:54):
really need the eyeball and they both yell in unison, fuck you Connor.
And if you're listening to the audiobook at this part, because I was at this part, the
way that they say it in unison was so fucking funny because he said, oh yeah, by the way,
we don't need the eyeball.
Fuck you Connor.
(56:17):
There was so much attitude.
And then he goes, no, I'm serious.
We really do need it.
But you also really need to get the fuck out because fire department's almost here.
So they did.
And they go...
And they've got what they need and they give it to Connor and he's going to dig into the
(56:39):
files.
They, on the other hand, are heading home.
Evie To me personally, this next part has to be
one of the saddest parts in the book.
It really breaks my heart, honestly.
(57:01):
Connor It was hard to read.
I went back to the physical book right here.
It was, I hated it, especially listening to it.
Like hearing them talk is pretty, it made me sad.
Evie It fucked me up.
Connor But this is where the phantom comes back
(57:24):
in and we learn that he is actually watching Ethel sleep.
She wakes up and she wants to know who he is.
He gives her a fake name and she understands he's using an alias and realizes he's there
to kill her.
Evie I liked her comment back to him though.
(57:44):
Whenever he gave a fake name she was like, well I'm so and so so if you're looking for
Ethel, she's not here today.
This explains her whole personality.
Connor Yes, it does.
This is what makes me really sad.
Because she's seen him in there, she knew what his intent was and she did not even make
a move to push the call button or to get a nurse.
(58:08):
Evie She just sat her bed up so she could look at
him.
Connor It's like she instantly accepted her fate.
Evie I mean she was also an old lady dying of cancer.
I feel like she had already accepted her fate.
So the phantom asks her if she repents before the judgment of the Lord, everything will
(58:30):
be okay.
And she doesn't.
But she tells him that her only regrets in life were not stealing a recipe and not going
home with a man after a party.
Connor She was getting it.
And then she kind of like had this attitude going on and the phantom is obviously upset.
(58:57):
Evie There was a comment she made that I was cackling
because I did not expect this old lady to say this.
But she was talking about how the guy from the party went home with another woman and
she spent the rest of her life talking about how he ate her ass.
And then she made a comment about how her husband and all of their years never ended
(59:22):
up eating her.
So she was mad about it.
I lost my shit.
I was laughing on the couch and Jesse came out there and gave me a weird look and I was
like, you don't want to know.
You don't want to know.
Connor She was so funny.
(59:42):
But he gives her a syringe full of saline and he expects her to try and save herself.
But she's just smiling.
And that is when he's about to OD her with the rhizopam through her IV.
And he gets this rush of euphoria.
He considers how God has helped him by leading him to avenge his brother.
(01:00:04):
And this is why how this is where we figure out who his brother is.
His brother is Harvey, a serial killer who Rowan and Sloan killed.
So if you read Butcher and Blackbird, you would know exactly who this man is.
That was my favorite scene in the other book too, because I thought the whole thing was
(01:00:30):
funny though, like Bates Motel reference to it just.
Yeah.
But after he reveals who exactly he is, he recites a hymn to Ethel.
Well, she makes fun of him for this.
(01:00:50):
And he takes her bloodied handkerchief from her and she tells the phantom that if he were
to hurt Lark or anyone, Lachlan would kill him.
And Ethel accepts her fate and the phantom puts the rhizopam into her IV and she passes
(01:01:12):
away.
At least if he was going to kill her.
I feel like that was the best way he could have done it.
I mean, I wish she wouldn't.
Yeah, it was pretty peaceful.
At least it wasn't brutal.
Yeah.
But.
Why?
(01:01:33):
I mean, she's already suffering.
I mean.
Why Ethel?
There was literally no call for that.
Like why hurt?
None.
Literally.
Bastard.
I hope you have what's coming to him though.
(01:01:53):
So.
So while that happens, or right after that happens, Lachlan is, I think he's at the leather
shop and Lark had just gotten home and she comes out of her room because Bentley's barking
(01:02:26):
and whining at something and she was supposed to be getting an Uber to go somewhere.
I forget where she was going.
But she was waiting for an Uber and she was supposed to be going somewhere to meet Lachlan.
She thought that Bentley was whining at the door because the Uber driver was there.
Maybe she missed the tone alert.
(01:02:49):
But then she looks and he's still 10 minutes away.
So she opens the door and it's Abe, who, by the way, I missed this earlier, but he was
also showed up at the concert and made like a weird remark about the cello.
Yeah.
And made a quote about music from the Bible and she kind of gave him a placating smile,
(01:03:15):
like a, yeah, okay.
So that was the second time she had denied God in front of him and he is completely driven
by what he thinks is God in his mind.
But he shows up at her door, she opens it, she tries to slam the door in a moment of
(01:03:36):
panic and he busts in and pushes her.
Her head hits a lamp, she falls to the floor, she hears whining from Bentley and it's not
depicted what happens to Bentley, but you know that he has been injured.
And then everything goes black for her.
(01:04:00):
So then we go to Lachlan, who shows up.
I now know why she was leaving the apartment.
She got the call that Ethel died.
Oh yes, that's right.
(01:04:23):
And so she had called Lachlan and asked him to meet her at the nursing home where she
was because they weren't moving her yet until she got there.
That's where she was supposed to be going.
So when Lachlan shows up at the nursing home and Sloane still isn't there, he gets this
really weird feeling.
(01:04:46):
And then he gets a call from, or he gets a text from Connor with some security footage
that was on Stan's security files, the guy that they went to the morgue for.
They got some photos and he sent it to Lachlan.
(01:05:14):
Long story short, he pieces together that the guy that was in his shop that day with
the saddle is the guy who killed Stan.
And he knows this because Abe killed Stan with Lachlan's edger.
All of his tools are like custom, so he recognized his own tool in the photo that Stan had taken
(01:05:42):
before his death.
And an uneasy feeling washes over him.
He realizes that something is wrong.
Lark is not answering her phone.
She would not miss this last moment with Ethel.
And him getting this piece of information really put him on high alert.
(01:06:04):
So then he tells Lark's parents that he's going to go looking for her.
And he asks Damien, her stepdad, to stay behind in case she shows up there.
And then he gives a description of the man he needs to watch out for.
When he does this, the nurse says, oh Steve, he left a couple hours ago.
(01:06:29):
And this gets Lachlan's attention because he's like, the fuck?
What do you mean, he was here?
She's like, yeah, we had some nursing shortages, so we hired through a temp agency, he showed
up.
And then they all share a knowing look and look at Ethel's room and they piece together
that it was not a peaceful death in her sleep, that Abe was there and killed her.
(01:06:57):
Which really sets Lachlan in motion.
He freaks out, he panics, he goes to her apartment.
And when she's not there, which Fiona and Rose he met on the way.
And they showed up too.
Fiona is a doctor.
So when they show up and he sees that Bentley is bleeding out on the floor, he tells Fiona,
(01:07:24):
save that fucking dog.
Don't you let him die.
Save the fucking dog.
And then Rose decides to go with Lachlan because she says, that's my girl, I'm not going to
leave her to the wolves.
This part kind of fucked me up a little bit because Fiona is telling her not to go, but
(01:07:50):
she's demanding that she goes and then she blurts out that she loves Fiona and he just
kind of freezes and doesn't say anything.
And you can see the hurt on Rose's face as they leave.
I totally wish he would have said it back.
It would have been a great moment, but that wouldn't have set us up for another book.
(01:08:13):
But they head out to go find him.
They've got Connor looking into Abe, but he's using an alias so they're really scrambling
for any kind of information they can find.
And he thinks about the last time that he had seen Abe and he was across the street
from the leather shop.
(01:08:35):
Or he was across the street from their apartment, sorry.
He was watching from there.
But him and Rose head over there, they break into his apartment and they find some photos
of how he'd been stalking all of them.
They kind of start piecing together like where she may be, so they head out to go find her.
(01:08:59):
And then we switch into Lark's point of view and she wakes up in a dark steel room chained
up.
Well, there's a chains.
I don't remember if she's actually chained up, but...
(01:09:21):
A light turns on and through a window she sees Abe, who is standing on the other side
telling her to relax and she's freaking out because she doesn't do small spaces.
(01:09:45):
He kind of tries to chant some Bible verses to her and she tells him pretty much that
he can shove it.
Lachlan shows up pointing a gun and he tells Lachlan that he has to make a choice.
(01:10:11):
It's either... he makes a comment about all these apps on people's phones and how you
can control everything and he made it a point to say that one app that he has can either
set off the bomb under Rowan and Sloan's car, who he sees through the GPS is heading their
way.
(01:10:32):
Or he can turn on the app that would turn on the batch oven that Sloan is currently
in.
But he has to choose one or the other will die.
I just want to say it really made it all of her I'm going to kill you with a batch oven
(01:10:58):
threats throughout the entire book.
Very ironic.
Honestly though.
Throughout the whole book she threatens everyone, especially Lachlan, that she's going to put
him in one of the muffin batch ovens and that's going to be his death.
And then she gets her ass locked in one.
(01:11:19):
So kind of weird.
But she does what she thinks she has to do and makes the decision for Lachlan because
he's... of course he's going to struggle to choose between his wife, the woman he fell
(01:11:40):
in love with, and his brother.
So she makes the decision for him.
And Abe accepts this decision and Lachlan's like, fuck you, no, don't turn on the oven
and he turns on the oven.
And she tells him that she loves him.
He tells her that he loves her.
(01:12:01):
And then the lights are turned out.
There's some gunshots and she's sweating like a pig in this oven that's been turned on.
That's getting real hot.
He's burning.
Yeah.
And then the lights come back on.
She kind of sees what happens.
(01:12:22):
And she hears Rose yelling at Lachlan because she sees him point the gun at the door hinge
and she says, Rose says, no, that could make it worse.
Shoot the glass.
He tells Lark to step back, shield her face.
He shoots out the glass.
There's like a rush of colere as the heat, you know, forces its way out of this window.
(01:12:48):
And he drags her out.
And when he does, she lays down on the cool floor to kind of cool off from being baked
alive.
And then she sees Abe dead on the floor with a bullet between his eyes.
Well thanks to Rose being there and spying, she was able to call Rowan and Sloan the moment
(01:13:14):
that she heard what was happening.
So they were able to pull over, get out of the car and get a safe distance away in case
a bomb went off.
Now that the threat has been neutralized, things fall into place and they can finally
go and live their lives.
(01:13:36):
First, they have to go to Leander's place to truly receive Lachlan's retirement.
In order to do this, Lark signs a contract on her, on behalf of her stepfather.
(01:13:59):
And Leander accepts this and lets Lachlan go.
In order to celebrate, they have a few beers.
Leander doesn't get more than one beer in before he's flat on his ass again.
And Lachlan is like, Lark, we talked about this.
(01:14:25):
She said no, technically I agreed to tell you if I was going to drug anymore muffins.
I didn't say anything about beer.
He was like, fuck.
Okay, woman.
And then before they leave, he gives her a present and he tells her to go look behind
(01:14:47):
the Constantine poster where the hole in the wall used to be and he had inserted a safe.
In this safe, there was a little heart in resin that he had made for her.
And then, to top it off, he gets down on one knee and she's like, what are you doing?
(01:15:11):
He says I'm proposing.
And he states that he is proposing because the first time they did this, it wasn't a
matter of what she wanted, it was a matter of what she felt she had to do.
And he wants to propose because he wants to give her a real choice.
(01:15:33):
We can either start over and pretend we met on the balcony that night.
We can get divorced and he shows her divorce papers.
Or we can continue on the path that we're on.
She pretty much tells him to shove those divorce papers up his ass and then takes the ring
(01:15:59):
and they go on a honeymoon where they really wanted to go throughout the whole book.
Was it Indonesia?
I think it was.
Because she had a thing for the orangutans for some reason.
But they go on this honeymoon.
(01:16:21):
They enjoy their time away.
And then their last night there, Lark has a surprise for him.
And I forgot that this was in the trigger warnings whenever I read this and so I was
also surprised.
As surprised as Lachlan was.
(01:16:45):
But she spreads, he walks out of the room to where she is and she has divorce papers
spread out all over the bed.
And she's in a robe and she starts slowly taking this robe off little by little, shoulder
by shoulder.
And he's really getting into it.
(01:17:08):
When she drops the entire robe, she states, I'm still pissed that you tried to serve me
divorce papers.
And when the robe drops, there is a strap on around her.
(01:17:30):
And bros into it.
And I'm not gonna get into detail about this one, but yeah, they get after it.
You can put two and two together.
Yeah.
But she does tell him, I'm still pissed about these papers so we're going to...
(01:17:51):
I'm going to fuck you on this bed on top of these divorce papers.
And you're gonna finish all over them because that's what they're worth.
Don't you ever serve them to me again.
And we also get praise kink here because she starts calling him good boy.
And at the end, they switch and he's back in charge.
(01:18:17):
But there is that happening.
I have read a lot of smut books, but I have not had that happen yet until now.
All I can say about it is it may not be what I'm into, but I was not surprised by it.
(01:18:46):
Like I've read so much smut at this point, it didn't bother me.
Not my cup of tea, but...
This was only my second smut book, so I didn't know what to think.
You gotta start reading the trigger warnings, Allie.
I do.
That was at the end of the book.
(01:19:07):
How am I supposed to remember that after like 20 something chapters?
I mean honestly, I forgot about it too.
But yeah, and then that's how it ends.
It's them doing it a final time.
I'm ready for the next book though.
(01:19:29):
Me too.
And Brynn gives us a little sneak peek at the next book at the end of this one.
Just like she did with Butcher and Blackbird and Leather and Lark.
But she adds at the end of the book,
Rose looks at Abe Meade, who lies dead on the floor.
(01:19:50):
She focuses on Lachlan and Lark, who are wrapped around each other, and Rose hopes that this
will be the last big moment of trouble for them.
Rose glances down at her shirt.
There's a small hole and a few drops of blood, but Rose can feel the bullet.
She lies down on the floor, but no one notices.
Fionne bursts in, calling her name, but it gets quieter and quieter.
(01:20:13):
In the final moments before she loses consciousness, she sees Fionne in the distance.
That's what we're left with.
Until February when it comes out.
The next one will come out though, eventually.
And you'll get a review then!
(01:20:34):
Waiting it as soon as it comes out.
Same.
Alright.
So that is Leather and Lark by Bryn Weaver.
Leather and Lark.
Love the cover arts on these books.
(01:20:58):
So book opinions.
I love it.
I think it's my favorite one.
I haven't read very many, but it's my favorite one.
I loved this book.
I wish that we had gotten more backstory on Lachlan's childhood.
(01:21:31):
All that's really said about why he killed his father is...
He just was like an unpleasant man.
He doesn't really talk about him.
Or really his mother.
I would have liked more about that.
For sure.
Because I like to understand the backstories, but overall I loved this book.
(01:21:55):
I think I'm a fan of Bryn Weaver because I've liked both books.
I preferred Butcher and Blackbird, but that's because I liked their methods and the competition
aspect.
Yeah.
But I definitely think I'm a fan of Bryn Weaver.
For sure.
(01:22:15):
Me too.
Overall, I give it like an 8 out of 10.
I say about a 9 out of 10.
I really liked this book.
What did you think about content wise?
I gave it an 8 out of 10 solely because of what you said.
(01:22:36):
I wish we had a little bit more background on the Caen boys.
Yeah, that seems to be a thing in this book.
There's more background on the women than the males.
Yeah.
That's all I wish.
That was the only issue I had with it was that we just didn't know very much about Lachlan
or really any of them.
(01:22:57):
Maybe in the next one we'll find out a little bit more.
I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10 on content.
On Spice for me, as somebody who has read a ton of these books, I'm going to give it
like a six and a half.
I'm giving it the same thing I gave the last one because it's essentially one sex scene
(01:23:23):
and you wait till the end to get to it.
The scene itself was written so well.
Like the writing of it was great.
It was just there really wasn't a whole lot of it in this book, but about a six and a
half, seven out of ten.
As a as an amateur smart reader, new smart reader, I gave it a 10 out of 10 just because
(01:23:51):
of the details of it and all that.
Even it wasn't pages and pages, actually I take that back, chapters and chapters like
Butcher and Blackbird.
I don't know, it didn't catch me off guard like Butcher and Blackbird did I guess.
Maybe that's why.
(01:24:11):
It wasn't as intense.
The pegging did, but the rest of it wasn't as intense as Butcher and Blackbird.
The more you read these books, the less it's going to catch you off guard because even
the pegging for me, I was like, oh, OK, strap on, cool.
Let's go.
(01:24:34):
For romance, I'm going to give it about an eight out of ten.
It had more romance than the first one, but I've also read other books that have had that
really got you in your heart, like make you cry romance.
So I'm going to give it like an eight out of ten.
I gave it a nine out of ten just because Loughlin wanting to earn forgiveness instead of just
(01:25:00):
automatically getting it really, really got me.
Like I thought that was really sweet.
I did like that.
And I liked all the forehead kisses and how he wanted to wave.
He was very, very affectionate.
The writing, I'm giving a ten out of ten on that because I like her writing style.
I like her comedic factors.
(01:25:22):
It's so well written.
I 100 percent agree with you on that.
That is the same rating that I gave.
I love her.
So for characters, like the characters themselves, I'm going to give about an eight and a half
(01:25:44):
out of ten just because there's not a lot of room for development or character arcs.
And also because, again, we didn't get a whole lot of backstory on Loughlin.
Like I want to know what happened in their childhood, which maybe she's waiting until
the last book to get into that.
(01:26:04):
But I really want to know.
I need to know some of it because I need to know why the guys are the way they are.
Why are they killers?
That's what I need to know.
I would have to say the character rating for me is high, only for Ethel.
I give it a nine.
Ethel was great.
(01:26:25):
She was my favorite character.
She was only in it a few times, but she won my heart.
She was my favorite character and she wasn't even a main character.
Exactly.
She was written so well that Brynn made us love her in just a few little lines.
Her writing skills.
I love her writing style.
Yes.
(01:26:45):
It keeps me focused on it because it's very easy for me to lose interest.
But the way she writes, it's very easy for me to hold interest in her books.
She's comedic.
She's serious, but she also dives into like real issues.
And she writes the jealousy so real in both books.
(01:27:07):
Like, I mean, in real life, none of us are, I can't say none of us.
Most of us are not going to go after a woman who just talked to our man in a restaurant.
But the rest of it was very accurate.
As always, thanks for listening and we will see y'all Thursday on Crime and Passion.
When we discuss our next true crime case, the James Bird killing in Jasper, Texas.
(01:27:33):
Don't forget to head over to our podcast to listen to a full chapter by chapter breakdown
of this book and many others.
You can find our link in the comments.
Be sure to like and follow us on social media and hit that subscribe button before you go.
We'll see y'all soon.
And he starts going through her stuff and then he starts trying to get in her head and
(00:14):
think like her and where she would hide stuff.
And he's looking around and he sees a Constantine poster, which she's obsessed with Constantine.
So he looks behind it and there is a literal fucking hole in the wall.
A literal fucking hole.
Like she just carved out a hole in the wall.
(00:34):
And he pulls out a box and he starts looking through it and he's like, what in the fuck
am I looking at?
And she comes home.
And he's like, hey, we need to talk.
She kind of starts like brushing it off and she starts trying to warm up some of the like,
(00:59):
some of the muffins from like her family's company.
And she's brushing it off and saying, I've had a long day.
I'm tired.
I don't want to talk anymore.
This is about the Claire thing.
Like I don't care.
And he goes, no, no, we need to talk about this.
And he starts like holding up objects out of this box.
(01:22):
And I forget what the first thing that he held up was.
Do you remember?
No, I do not.
So he's holding up these objects and then he holds, there's an object that he first
(01:42):
holds up and she's like, I don't know what that is.
I don't know.
And then he holds up these maracas, these like homemade maracas.
They're not like store bought.
Like she crafted these.
And he describes them as the bulbs look and feel similar to that of skin.
(02:07):
And then she's like, they're maracas.
Like do you not recognize maracas?
Again, she's trying to like play him for a fool and make him feel stupid.
Did you find it?
I didn't, but I found something that you're going to giggle at.
What?
So it's like a fandom universe that I clicked on.
(02:29):
It's like all the characteristics and attributes and all that to each character in the book.
Yeah.
Well, it shows their nicknames.
What is it?
Duchess.
Wonder Barbie.
Meadowlark.
Meadowlark.
And fecking catastrophe.
F-E-C-K-I-N.
You fecking catastrophe.
Yeah, that did make me giggle a little.
(02:50):
But he's holding up these maracas and she's trying to make him look stupid.
Did you find it?
I did.
What is it?
A finger in a jar with a ring on it.
(03:12):
Because she couldn't remove the ring off the finger.
I thought that was the last thing that he found.
There was something smaller.
It says it's the first one.
There were three things.
What three things does that say?
(03:33):
It says the jar, the maracas...
Oh, it actually doesn't even show the last one.
We'll move past it.
So he holds up these maracas and when she starts just playing it cool, he starts shaking
(04:01):
them and they start rattling and he's like, so if I just do this and then he smashes it
and dumps the contents in his hand, he's like, yep, I expected to find that, but I was really
hoping it wouldn't be that.
And it is human teeth.
The maracas were made of human skin filled with human teeth.
(04:24):
She's like, she kind of again tries to just play stupid, like it's totally normal and
she's laughing so awkwardly and uncomfortably throughout all of this.
And then he goes, okay, what is this?
And he holds up the jar that has a finger in it and a ring on the finger.
(04:45):
And she's like, it's a ring.
And he goes, it's attached to a finger.
She goes, well, yeah, I couldn't get the finger off.
I cannot with this fucking woman because she's just like, oh, it's a finger.
(05:07):
There's a finger in the jar.
And then he asks the question, Lark, are you like, are you like a fucking serial killer?
And she, she specifically states, of course not.
(05:29):
No, I'm more like a, I'm more like a multiple deleter.
I lost my shit because throughout this entire book, she is adamant.
She is not a serial killer.
She's a multiple deleter and anytime he tries to refer to her as a serial killer, she gives
(05:53):
him a death glare.
But yeah, so she admits to it and then she just kind of leaves the apartment.
He takes Bentley and he tries to chase after her and they're in the stairwell and she goes,
(06:21):
I'm not coming back up there just for you to judge me.
He's like, well, when I find out my wife is a serial and she glares at him, he goes, multiple
deleter.
I feel like that warrants a conversation.
And she goes, no, it don't.
No, it doesn't.
You're going to judge me.
I'm not in the mood to be judged.
This is why I don't tell people.
I'm going to leave now.
(06:41):
And that's the end of it.
She just walks away and he's just left there stunned in the stairwell.
And then Bentley makes like a groaning noise, like Bentley's calling him an idiot.
But then he takes the dog for a walk.
(07:03):
And that's essentially how that chapter ends.
And then we get into them meeting the parents.
Well, they're meeting Lark's parents.
(07:25):
And they spend some time getting to know each other, just basic information things, which
again he tries to touch on the multiple deleter thing.
And she doesn't give into that.
She's like, hey, let's just stick to the basic information from each other.
(07:53):
He's like, okay, fine, whatever.
He gives in.
And then they go to this brunch and they pick up Auntie Ethel, who by the way is a big fat
liar and she is good at it.
I love her.
I'll say it every time we say her name.
So they all ride together to Lark's family home.
(08:17):
And as soon as she walks in the door, she goes to try to introduce Lachlan, but she
can't, she chickens out and she can't say that he is her husband.
And she's like, this is my Lachlan.
And then Auntie Ethel pops up behind her.
She's like, husband, dear, that's her husband.
(08:43):
Leave it to Ethel.
And so the sister freaks out, husband, husband, husband, like just over and over says it.
And then the mom comes in, Lark's mom enters the chat and she's like, hey, what's going
(09:09):
on?
And then her face kind of falters when she sees Lachlan because at this point they don't
know about any of this.
Or that Lark may know that they were planning on killing Lachlan.
So she's really surprised to see the man they were thinking about knocking off in her foray.
And then she gets the surprise from the sister that they are married.
(09:35):
And Ethel keeps the mom in check.
So before she can really say anything negative, Ethel always keeps popping up saying some
positive comment before the mother can say anything negative.
And then Lachlan pipes up, he's like, it's not as strange as it sounds.
(10:01):
Let's take this bottle of wine or the whiskey that I brought and let's talk about this.
So they all go into the dining room and the mom and sister explain that Lachlan is her
husband and he is just as shocked.
But he's a little more reserved in his commenting.
(10:24):
But they get their dinner and they've explained how they met, which they do admit that they
met because Lachlan threw her in a trunk.
They don't explain why.
The stepdad is asking Lachlan questions about their relationship, how they met.
(10:47):
And then dessert is brought in and Ethel being the hot sir that she is, just has to take
this moment and say, so now that you're through interrogating the boy, let's discuss the Leviathan
contract.
And they, the stepdad's like, we don't have one.
(11:09):
We're not going to have one.
And she says that the Montague family now will be in business with the Leviathan.
And Lark's mother speaks up and says, I'm not signing off on that.
Or she said, I haven't signed off on that.
(11:31):
And Ethel says, that's because I never gave you the power to do so.
Damn Ethel.
And then to drive the knife in even further, she pulls out a packet and hands it to Lark
and says, I am giving the power to Lark.
She will now be the secretary of these Montague, Montague muffins.
(11:59):
And Lark is stunned by this and everybody turns their head to Lark and then Lark's like,
ah, she throws up her hand.
She's like, I don't fucking know.
I didn't do this.
And then yeah, it becomes like a whole thing.
But Lark, knowing what she has to do in order to help Lachlan retire to hold up her end
(12:22):
of the bargain, she has to accept.
And so that is what she does.
And then now is where the argument happens about her marriage.
Because they start saying that it is a conflict of interest for her to hire her the company
(12:44):
that her husband works for.
And Ethel in her smart ass ways, like we're in the muffin business, dear.
We're not in any other business.
Conflict of interest.
We're not lawyers.
We're not doctors.
Sit down and shut up, basically.
Like we're tired about muffins here.
(13:05):
Chill out.
And then Lark also pipes up and says, well, Lachlan is retiring soon, so it won't matter
anyways.
Problem solved.
Everyone's happy.
They say, no, they're not happy.
And then they start ragging on the marriage.
And the father finally speaks up and says, you must really love him.
(13:33):
He must really be something to you.
And she says, yes, if I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't have married him.
And for some reason, the dad decides to not to finally speak his mind and says, he's a
(13:53):
killer, Lark.
And Lark is like, if we're all going to be honest here, he's not the only one in this
family at this table who has done the same thing.
And that makes everybody sit in silence, frozen, waiting for the father's response because
(14:16):
it's like a holy shit.
Did she just say the unspeakable thing?
And yes, she did.
She finally went there, but she knew it was going to ping them.
And then he says, Lark Montague.
And she says, Kane, daddy.
(14:40):
My name is Lark Kane.
And as she throws her license down on the table and says, I've already, I will stick
with Montague for now publicly, but I've already started getting my name changed on everything.
And she shows them the license where her name is changed to Lark Kane.
(15:03):
And after this, they decide to just part.
So all three of them, Lark, Lachlan, and Ethel, leave.
The father walks into their door and he makes a comment about, you know, I hope you know
what you're doing.
(15:24):
And then Lachlan assures him that he takes his vows very seriously and he will do whatever
he has to do to protect and provide for Lark.
The dad shakes his hand, they go on their way.
And then there's a conversation in the car where Ethel says that the driver's license
(15:47):
was a good touch.
It's revealed that Lark never took her stepfather's name, even though he was Lark's father for
most of her life because her father passed away at a young age.
So she never took his last name because she never wanted to give up that last piece of
(16:12):
her father.
She didn't want to ever forget what he gave her.
So she had vowed to never change her last name.
And they disclose this to Lachlan.
And he's looking at her in the rearview mirror, but she won't look at him.
(16:36):
And then Ethel speaks up and says that she sacrificed the last part of her father for
you.
Your wife broke her own heart to save your life.
And that hit me hard because what the fuck?
(17:01):
What did she gain?
What is she gaining?
She's literally giving up everything.
That one part kind of... it hit in a different way.
Well, you relate to it in the same way.
Yeah, yeah, true.
(17:22):
Because I can get the last name being the only thing that you got left.
You're really good playing with emotions with that, by the way, Brynn.
Appreciate it.
She tapped into some stuff here.
She did.
(17:42):
Now we meet...
We are on our way to meet Leander.
So Clark is at the nursing home and she is taking care of Ethel and Ethel has to get
an IV, but she doesn't like needles.
And she's staring off into the doorway of the room and right before Clark turns to look,
(18:07):
Ethel tells her to sing her a song.
And so she does.
And then suddenly in the middle of the song, Ethel says, hey, I want some of those hard
candies out there by the nurse's station.
Clark's like, okay, that's weird, but she's always asking me to get random shit, so okay.
So she gets up and then she goes out there and we see Lachlan leaving.
(18:32):
And she yells to Lachlan, but he just stands there frozen in the hallway.
He doesn't turn around.
She asks him, are you okay?
He nods, doesn't say anything.
She starts walking to him and he just kind of glances over his shoulder.
He won't turn around to face her.
And she asks what he was doing there and essentially he came to ask her to go to Leander's to do
(19:02):
their meeting over the contracts.
And at first she, he offers to bring her with him, but she decides that she's just going
to take an Uber.
And he leaves and it was such a weird interaction.
And she turns around, she goes back into Ethel's room and Ethel tells her to kick rocks and
(19:26):
go.
She's a tired old lady.
She wants to go home.
Ethel planned that.
I just want to say this.
How did Lark not catch on to every time that Ethel was scheming on her?
Every time she went to go get something, there was something that Ethel was wanting her to
see her here.
Right?
But apparently that was normal for Ethel throughout her whole life, so not everything had to have
(19:50):
been a scam.
I don't know, I feel like after the lotion I would be on hollered at all times.
Right.
But she schemed this.
She saw Lachlan in the doorway and she didn't want, I think she wanted Lachlan to see another
side of Lark, which was the sweet, sensitive sad that was singing a love song to her ill
(20:17):
grand, her ill aunt.
And then when she saw Lachlan leaving, she sent Lark on her way.
But she schemed this and she pretty much tells Lark to kick rocks and go to the meeting.
She's a tired old lady.
She doesn't want her there, which she's being completely sarcastic.
(20:42):
But she leaves, Lark leaves and she goes and Lachlan's waiting outside of Leander's house
for her.
And he has a whole conversation with her about, don't do this, don't do this, don't accept
anything from me.
If he orders pizza, we're leaving.
(21:06):
And oh, I forgot to mention part of this deal for Leander to let Lachlan go, he demanded
that he have fresh muffins baked by Auntie Ethel herself.
So Lark brought the muffins that Ethel made.
(21:31):
And they have this conversation where he tells her what to do, what not to do, if there's
fresh pizza and we're gone.
They walk inside and he's telling her how he's kind of how Leander is kind of unhinged.
She's kind of weird.
(21:52):
As if on cue, Leander pops out of a doorway with a gun, points it at her and says, bang,
bang, bang.
And as soon as this happens, Lachlan shoves her behind him in a very protective way and
(22:13):
he's yelling at Leander like, what the fuck, put the gun down before you kill yourself
and all of us with you.
And he starts laughing and Lachlan said to quit trying to scare her and she says, you
gotta try harder than that, but she also in her monologue says that her heart is beating
a million miles an hour.
(22:39):
They are escorted to the pub room where the whole dart situation and the beer pizza tooth
funneling was happening.
They're-
The dirt gagging sound?
Yeah.
They're sitting there, they're negotiating.
She had given him the muffins and he's eating the muffins as they're all talking and he's
(23:02):
drinking a beer.
And then they get through negotiating, they make a deal.
Leander stands up and then he falls flat on his ass.
Lachlan's like, shit.
And Lark says, and I quote, yeah, I kind of thought that might happen.
(23:29):
Lachlan's like, you drugged the muffin?
She goes, well, technically Ethel did.
I didn't know for sure that they were, but she had specifically said for us not to eat
them.
So I had a suspicion and he was like, you weren't going to tell me this, what if I had
(23:50):
had one?
And she plays it off.
I mean, I just kind of figured she wouldn't.
Just, you know, let it play out.
But with all of this deal and contract, they are given permission to use the resources
(24:10):
to find out who was really killing off her family.
And so with Leander passed out, they just go into the facilities area where all the
technology is and they start digging around.
They don't really find anything, but it's a good start.
(24:33):
So since we are getting emotional in this chapter, this is where Lachlan finally apologizes
for putting Lark in the trunk at the beginning of the book.
They are having a nice conversation and Lachlan tells her he's not going to ask her to forgive
(24:58):
him because he wants to earn her forgiveness.
He doesn't want it to just be a, I'm sorry, it's okay, it's over.
He wanted to do whatever he could to earn her forgiveness.
Which is so sweet.
It really is.
Most people are like, I just want you to hurry up and forgive me so we can get this over
(25:19):
with.
Like I apologize, we're good now, right?
He was like, no.
So they're talking and I should say they're in the car.
I believe this is when they are leaving Leander's.
I think so.
So they're driving and they're talking and Lachlan stops at this place and really doesn't
(25:46):
know what's going on.
This is when Lachlan tells her he can tell that she hasn't been sleeping and this is
a sleep retreat.
He brought her here to just let go of all of her responsibilities and relax and just
chill out.
Don't think, rest.
(26:06):
He tells her that he'll be available all weekend to call him if she needs him.
Well, Lark gets upset because she thinks that Lachlan dropping her off at the sleep retreat
means he wants another woman.
(26:27):
He's using dropping her off as an excuse to be with someone else.
This is one of those real jealous moments.
Like for real.
Why are you so okay with leaving me?
Yeah I feel that.
She had like a whole bunch of thoughts of like why is he doing this?
Nobody's ever done this for me and then her mind went to the jealous sector of her brain
(26:52):
and I was like.
Literally.
Instantly.
Yeah.
I thought he was just trying to get rid of her so he could actually get some because
he's not getting any from her.
But there's a conversation about that too.
Yeah.
So he tells her that he's not trying to be with another woman.
(27:14):
He takes his vows seriously which if we all knew Irish in the beginning we would know
that he did.
And he lets her know like you know he's doing this for her.
He doesn't want anybody else.
He walks her inside.
Or actually they are still talking and he tells her you know just because the situation
(27:38):
and circumstances of our marriage are unusual like I want to be here.
And then he walks her inside and she thanks him and then he pulls her into a hug and kisses
her temple.
Which for most females is just.
It made me want a hug.
(27:59):
It made me want to like go to Jessie and get a hug and a forehead kiss because it's just
so sweet.
It's the little things.
There's something so like pure about it.
Yeah.
So after he's all sweet and stuff he leaves the retreat and he does something to keep
(28:27):
busy for a few hours and waits for Lark to call him.
He knew she was going to call him.
He was just waiting.
And when she does he lets her know that he is actually sitting outside of this retreat
waiting on her.
There's excitement in her voice too.
Like he hears her wrestle the covers to get out of bed and she's like excited and he said
(28:50):
he heard her squeal.
That part made me laugh because I was like that's such a girly thing.
I would have done that too.
And then that's when he lets her know that this sleep retreat is just a really good alibi
for what they're actually going to do.
(29:13):
Sweet Lachlan.
Sweet sweet Lachlan.
He has arranged.
Yes very much so.
He has arranged for his associate Connor to find who we figure out was Lark's search on
(29:33):
the database.
It is Dr. Lewis Campbell and we will find out here in a second who exactly this man
is.
But he is tied to a chair in his own home.
And that is when Lachlan brings Larkin and shows him or shows her I'm sorry shows her
(29:55):
Dr. Campbell.
This is when we find out that this is actually the man that was the headmaster at the was
it private school or boarding school.
I think it was a boarding school.
He was the headmaster of the boarding school that Lark attended when she was younger.
(30:19):
He is told by Lachlan that he was taken because of him protecting a teacher named Mr. Verden
when allegations of abuse were made against him.
It was a long list of allegations.
Like real formal complaints by other students and other teachers and nothing was ever done.
(30:45):
Yes.
And that is when Campbell tells Lachlan that he cannot be killed because he made a deal
with the Montagues to help them cover up Verden's disappearance and he is willing to give evidence
over to the FBI.
However, Lachlan reveals he's already taken the evidence from Campbell's hiding spot.
(31:10):
I think it's worth noting that it was Sloan.
Like Sloan made the complaint.
Yeah.
About like she was one of the complainants about all of the students who started acting
(31:32):
weird after taking this professor's art class.
Yeah.
I mean, amongst a bunch of other complainants, but Sloan was one of them.
This is when Lark enters the room and sees Campbell and he begs her for help.
(31:55):
And we'll find out here in a second why that's absolutely ridiculous that he would ask her
of all people for help.
She walks over to him and she proceeds to show his mouth shut, which is it's got to
be symbolism for the fact that he kept his mouth shut over this teacher.
(32:16):
Yeah.
With gold string.
Yes.
I just thought that was a funny detail.
It was like shimmery gold string.
She is very artistic.
She loves shimmery glitter and stickers.
I cannot do glitter.
Glitter is the herpes of art.
Once you get it, you cannot get rid of it.
Yeah, I know.
I hate it.
Sorry to glitter lovers.
(32:42):
As she's sewing up Campbell's mouth, she starts to tell Lachlan and Campbell what exactly
her motive is behind this.
She lets them know how Sloane helped her fix her uniform after what Verdon did to her.
(33:06):
And after Sloane got rid of Verdon.
It just.
I don't have like, I guess the when you find out everything that's going on, it kind of
just hits you.
Like.
It all falls together, I guess.
Yeah.
(33:26):
It's fucked up.
Yes, very much so.
So after she's done doing her little arts and crafts on his mouth.
Lachlan offers Lark a gun and she proceeds to shoot Campbell.
Lark stays to clean up and he sends Connor, his associate, to send Lark back to the sleep
(33:56):
retreat.
After enough time for Lachlan to have cleaned up the mess.
Hours.
Lark calls and asks him to read Dewar so she can fall asleep.
And the sweetest thing in the world, I have to say it again, I know you said it a second
ago and I just have to say this, she's obsessed with Constantine.
(34:18):
Like this is her shit.
He actually reads the screenplay of Constantine to her until she falls asleep.
And then once she's sleeping, he mutes his phone and stays on the phone with her just
in case she wakes up.
He wants to be there.
So romantic.
(34:40):
So sweet.
Also want to say in case by the time you've watched the Butcher and Blackbird episode
and this episode, if it hasn't been made abundantly clear, Sloane was the one who knocked off
the teacher.
Yeah.
(35:03):
Because she found Lark crying with torn up with a torn up uniform and Sloane re-sewed
it and Sloane was over it.
No none of her complaints were taken seriously.
So she just handled it herself and Lark made a vow that nobody would ever have to do that
(35:27):
for her again and that she would owe Sloane her protection from then on out.
And that is how she ended up becoming what she is.
Yep.
That's how both of them became what they are.
Two friends born out of trauma become serial killers.
I tell you they would have never went to that boarding school.
(35:49):
They would have been okay.
They would have never known each other.
There'd be a lot of-
The whole effect is real.
It truly is.
One little thing.
That's all it takes.
Crazy.
But we move forward and she eventually comes back from the retreat and we kind of skip
(36:16):
board a little bit.
We find Lachlan in his leather shop.
This is the first time we're actually seeing the leather shop.
And a guy walks in under the name Abe.
Or by the name of Abe.
And he brings in a saddle, claims that he had an appointment for the next day but he
(36:39):
was already in the neighborhood so he just decided to bring it in.
He's supposed to be getting a redesign on this old family heirloom saddle.
At first everything seems fine and then the guy starts kind of giving Lachlan the creeps.
He's like, this dude's weird.
(37:00):
I don't really want to turn my back to him.
And he turns around, Lachlan turns around to grab a pen and a paper to write down some
of the things that he wants done.
And so as soon as he turns around he hears the bell and in walks Lark.
(37:26):
Lark introduces herself, Abe introduces himself, they kind of talk about writing for a second.
And then Lachlan is getting really uncomfortable by this situation and by Abe.
So he tells Abe that they have a prior engagement that they need to get to that if he wants
(37:48):
to keep his original time the next day that they can do that.
And Abe tells him, no I think I've already told you everything I need done, we're good
here.
And they leave.
Abe leaves, Lachlan leaves, Lark leaves, Lachlan hands Lark the keys.
(38:09):
This is probably my favorite part in the entire book.
I was physically cackling in my chair when I read this.
So they're leaving because Lark has a concert that she is putting on, like she's got a gig
(38:33):
with her band.
And so Lachlan gives her the keys to go start the car, she gets in, she pushes the clutch,
she turns on the car, and he is loading boxes up that were left for them.
When she turns on the car, this is like every audiobook woman's like worst nightmare is
(39:01):
somebody turning on our vehicle or our stereo and our phones being hooked up to it in the
middle of a book.
Well for Lachlan this fear became reality.
And when she turns on the car there is some heavy smutting going on.
(39:22):
And I mean heavy, it reads it to you in the book.
And she's like, holy shit, no way.
And then she texts Sloane and she says, I finally understand why you read smut books.
Sloane says I need more context so she sends her a recording of a part of it.
(39:45):
And Sloane says, oh my god, I told him to read those books, I just never thought he'd
actually do it.
They have a small conversation about it and then Lachlan starts walking over and he goes
to open the door but Lark pushes the lock button and he's like, what the hell?
(40:06):
And she turns up the radio full blast so he has to hear it.
So he can hear why she's locking him out.
And she said that you cannot hear him but she sees him mouthing the words fuck fuck
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
And she's messing with him and then eventually she unlocks the door.
(40:30):
He as soon as she unlocks it whips the door open and she gets out and she starts messing
with him about it.
And he's, she's like being sexually promiscuous about the situation, like kind of picking
at him but also kind of, you know, doing the blue balls flirt that girls do.
(40:54):
And he's getting it.
And so she walks around to the other side, they drive in silence for a while because
he's completely ignoring her and all of her jokes.
And then they park and again, this, everything about this is just hilarious to me.
(41:17):
They park and she tells him that he can go in through the back with her.
She'll take him in the back door.
She says it just like that and then he says back door and she goes yeah back door.
(41:37):
And shit, stop for a second.
My headphones are about to die so we're gonna have to kind of like get through this.
That's fine because I need to go to bed like just very soon.
I'm just throwing that out there because my headphones might die before this ends and
(42:02):
that's not good because this is recording through my headphones.
Back to...
She tells him it's crowded out front, I'm gonna take you in the back door and he says
back door?
Question mark.
(42:22):
She's like yeah back door.
And he's kind of being weird about it and he's like gripping the steering wheel really
hard because he's like taking this in a different way and she's acting all innocent about it
like do you have a problem with back doors?
Like is that the rear entrance?
Is that like weird to you?
(42:45):
She's acting like she doesn't know what she's doing but she knows what she's doing.
And she gets out of the car, he gets out of the car.
She was like I happen to like the back door.
She then jokes with him about it being anal and she starts talking about how she likes
anal.
(43:06):
There was even this one time where her and this one guy and then he grabs her by the
throat, pins her up against a wall, and tells her she needs to stop.
And she's like why do you not like anal?
He was like that's not my problem.
And then he says I cannot bear to hear about the way some other guy fucked my wife or the
(43:28):
way that she might have fucked him.
I had to turn on a fan after that part because it got real hot.
It got real hot, real fast.
I needed a fan.
And then there's a lot of sexual tension that happens right here.
(43:51):
He's got her pinned up against the wall and she starts grinding on him and he's trying
to control himself but he doesn't want to engage in anything sexual until she has forgiven
him because he doesn't want to start on another path until he has earned her forgiveness.
(44:12):
Which is romantic.
Sweet.
But they get busted out in the alley doing this and by one of her bandmates.
So they go inside.
She does the performance but she had given him a gift and it was a remote.
(44:33):
And he turns on the remote while she's singing and then he realizes about 30 seconds in it's
a vibrator and he's controlling it.
I just want to add this real quick.
The singing is in the audiobook and if you are listening to the audiobook it's very cringey.
(44:55):
I wished it would just quit already.
It feels like it lasted forever.
I read it in the book so it was very different for me because I was switching between the
audiobook and the physical copy.
But I can imagine.
(45:18):
Because it's not a real singer.
It was really cringey.
I really wish they wouldn't have put that one in there.
That was literally the only bad thing about the book was the singing.
If you're reading the hard copy it's not that bad.
If you're listening to the audiobook be warned.
But in the song she does say that she forgives him.
(45:40):
So that is probably why they still put it in.
Because there is an important factor in there.
She talks about how she forgives him and she dedicated the song to him.
But he's playing with this toy and she comes on stage with a cello between her legs.
(46:02):
She's throwing that out there.
That was the most bluntly anything that we have said has been put this entire time out
of all of the videos.
That was so cool.
I was tired of beating around the bush okay.
I'm just gonna fucking say it.
(46:27):
So that happens and then he disappears.
And so when she gets off the stage she thinks that she went too far and that he left during
the performance.
So she goes into a bathroom backstage and is crying in the mirror really being down
about herself.
(46:47):
Thinking that she just fucked it all up.
And then he busts in saying that he had been waiting for her in her dressing room.
And that if she had checked her phone first for his text message she would have seen that.
And then she looks at the text and she's like oh shit.
(47:11):
And then she asks if it was a problem that they did what they did and he was like you
think I liked that?
And she was like did you not like that?
And he's like you think that I enjoyed watching you come on stage in front of 500 people and
(47:32):
I'm not even able to touch you?
No, I'm not okay with that.
And this leads us immediately into like spiciness.
They immediately go at it.
Because he asks, so you really forgive me?
She says yes.
(47:53):
He says I've been tested, are you on the pill?
She says yes.
And then they just get it on.
I mean it is a fast conversation.
And they just get after it.
And I want to say that they don't exactly have full on sex right here.
But he gets her off another time using some mouth work.
(48:20):
They go home and then they do it and he gets spicy.
This is where like the degradation comes in.
Because she tells him I am your wife but when we do it I am not your wife I am your whore.
(48:41):
To give you an idea of how this goes.
There is some hands and knees crawling, begging, whore.
She wanted to be treated like a whore pretty much.
And that is how the entire sex scene goes.
So if you're not into that be warned.
(49:02):
If you're into that you're gonna love this.
It was a great scene.
The one part that got me though was the ice.
I had a bad experience with ice and this triggered that memory.
(49:24):
You just triggered the memory in my brain when you said that.
It was a very bad experience.
Oh my gosh.
It was a very bad experience.
It's not even my memory but you triggered it as soon as you said that.
(49:45):
It was such a bad experience.
I totally wish I would have been thinking about that when I read that because I would
have been giggling.
I was not giggling I was crossing my legs.
Oh my gosh.
That's how you know that there is no TMI between the two of us.
(50:06):
None.
Not at all.
And now unless Jessie edits this out the world's gonna know.
For those of you listening Ally just spit out her drink.
She's choking.
I did not spit it out.
I almost did.
You said that as soon as I took a sip.
(50:30):
Good times.
Sorry, bud.
I'm not even sure if Jessie knows.
I don't know.
He's about to learn something.
Him and the world if he doesn't edit this out.
Jessie leave it in please.
(50:51):
You shouldn't have even said anything.
I couldn't not say something.
Moving forward there is some ice that is involved so if you have PTSD with some ice and some
sex maybe skip forward in this scene a little bit.
(51:15):
So moving forward from that they spent all night doing it.
I think it's real spicy.
And then the next morning...sorry, Ally is still trying to like get herself together
(51:37):
over there.
The next morning they...Lachlan, Lark, and Connor, Lachlan's work associate, are going
to find out what happened to Ethel's right hand man, Stan Tremblay.
(52:05):
Because at first they think that he might have been a suspect but then they find out
that he is deceased, like recently deceased.
So they decide to break into a morgue.
And they do.
Connor sets off a fire alarm.
Ice counting down for them.
And they break in and they go and they pull a little dude out of the morgue.
(52:28):
Like out of the slot in the morgue.
I forget what it's called.
The like refrigeration on the wall.
This is going so bad.
Fuck it, y'all know what I'm talking about.
The morgue refrigerators, you know.
The thingy on the wall with the handle and the pull out bed.
(52:49):
You know how it gets cold.
Fuck you.
You all know what I'm talking about.
Jesus.
The human refrigerator that's in the morgue.
We got it.
They pull dude out, okay.
And they need to get his index finger and his thumb in order to hack into his personal
(53:18):
security files.
I'm confused.
I thought they took his eyeball.
They did, but they also had to take his thumb and his finger.
I guess the only thing that stuck with me was the eyeball because she was like we should
have totally got Sloane to do this.
(53:39):
They also had to take the pointer finger and the thumb because it was like a biometric
scanner so it was both those and then the eyes.
I guess the eye just stuck with me because of that.
Probably.
But they pull him out and they have to get his pointer, his index finger, and his thumb.
(54:01):
They get to chopping which is kind of...
It should have been odd for Lark because she grew up with him and he's the one that like
cleaned up the mess at the boarding school for her so he was really there for her.
But she described it as therapeutic and that concerned Lachlan and Connor who was listening
(54:22):
on the earpieces.
So they get the fingers no problem but now they have to use an enucleation spoon to dig
out dude's eyeball because in order to get into his security files they need his fingerprints
and a retinal scanner.
(54:45):
So Lachlan starts digging at the eye and Lark makes a comment that she really should have
enlisted Sloane for this because that was her specialty and not theirs and Lark is gagging.
And Lachlan is gagging.
And Connor is in their ear telling them to just pretend it's like a gumball or a piece
(55:10):
of candy.
Like making references to food because again...
Of course.
Bryn Weaver has to ruin food.
And they're both yelling at each other and yelling at him to shut up and please stop
talking about food as they're gagging and like vomiting into their mouths because they
can't get DNA anywhere.
(55:33):
So this goes on for a while.
They're really struggling to get this eyeball out.
I don't feel like it should have been this hard.
Or maybe I'm just really fucked up in the head.
They were probably gagging more than they were scooping.
Evie Probably.
But eventually they get the eyeball out and then Connor decides to tell them they didn't
(55:54):
really need the eyeball and they both yell in unison, fuck you Connor.
And if you're listening to the audiobook at this part, because I was at this part, the
way that they say it in unison was so fucking funny because he said, oh yeah, by the way,
we don't need the eyeball.
Fuck you Connor.
(56:17):
There was so much attitude.
And then he goes, no, I'm serious.
We really do need it.
But you also really need to get the fuck out because fire department's almost here.
So they did.
And they go...
And they've got what they need and they give it to Connor and he's going to dig into the
(56:39):
files.
They, on the other hand, are heading home.
Evie To me personally, this next part has to be
one of the saddest parts in the book.
It really breaks my heart, honestly.
(57:01):
Connor It was hard to read.
I went back to the physical book right here.
It was, I hated it, especially listening to it.
Like hearing them talk is pretty, it made me sad.
Evie It fucked me up.
Connor But this is where the phantom comes back
(57:24):
in and we learn that he is actually watching Ethel sleep.
She wakes up and she wants to know who he is.
He gives her a fake name and she understands he's using an alias and realizes he's there
to kill her.
Evie I liked her comment back to him though.
(57:44):
Whenever he gave a fake name she was like, well I'm so and so so if you're looking for
Ethel, she's not here today.
This explains her whole personality.
Connor Yes, it does.
This is what makes me really sad.
Because she's seen him in there, she knew what his intent was and she did not even make
a move to push the call button or to get a nurse.
(58:08):
Evie She just sat her bed up so she could look at
him.
Connor It's like she instantly accepted her fate.
Evie I mean she was also an old lady dying of cancer.
I feel like she had already accepted her fate.
So the phantom asks her if she repents before the judgment of the Lord, everything will
(58:30):
be okay.
And she doesn't.
But she tells him that her only regrets in life were not stealing a recipe and not going
home with a man after a party.
Connor She was getting it.
And then she kind of like had this attitude going on and the phantom is obviously upset.
(58:57):
Evie There was a comment she made that I was cackling
because I did not expect this old lady to say this.
But she was talking about how the guy from the party went home with another woman and
she spent the rest of her life talking about how he ate her ass.
And then she made a comment about how her husband and all of their years never ended
(59:22):
up eating her.
So she was mad about it.
I lost my shit.
I was laughing on the couch and Jesse came out there and gave me a weird look and I was
like, you don't want to know.
You don't want to know.
Connor She was so funny.
(59:42):
But he gives her a syringe full of saline and he expects her to try and save herself.
But she's just smiling.
And that is when he's about to OD her with the rhizopam through her IV.
And he gets this rush of euphoria.
He considers how God has helped him by leading him to avenge his brother.
(01:00:04):
And this is why how this is where we figure out who his brother is.
His brother is Harvey, a serial killer who Rowan and Sloan killed.
So if you read Butcher and Blackbird, you would know exactly who this man is.
That was my favorite scene in the other book too, because I thought the whole thing was
(01:00:30):
funny though, like Bates Motel reference to it just.
Yeah.
But after he reveals who exactly he is, he recites a hymn to Ethel.
Well, she makes fun of him for this.
(01:00:50):
And he takes her bloodied handkerchief from her and she tells the phantom that if he were
to hurt Lark or anyone, Lachlan would kill him.
And Ethel accepts her fate and the phantom puts the rhizopam into her IV and she passes
(01:01:12):
away.
At least if he was going to kill her.
I feel like that was the best way he could have done it.
I mean, I wish she wouldn't.
Yeah, it was pretty peaceful.
At least it wasn't brutal.
Yeah.
But.
Why?
(01:01:33):
I mean, she's already suffering.
I mean.
Why Ethel?
There was literally no call for that.
Like why hurt?
None.
Literally.
Bastard.
I hope you have what's coming to him though.
(01:01:53):
So.
So while that happens, or right after that happens, Lachlan is, I think he's at the leather
shop and Lark had just gotten home and she comes out of her room because Bentley's barking
(01:02:26):
and whining at something and she was supposed to be getting an Uber to go somewhere.
I forget where she was going.
But she was waiting for an Uber and she was supposed to be going somewhere to meet Lachlan.
She thought that Bentley was whining at the door because the Uber driver was there.
Maybe she missed the tone alert.
(01:02:49):
But then she looks and he's still 10 minutes away.
So she opens the door and it's Abe, who, by the way, I missed this earlier, but he was
also showed up at the concert and made like a weird remark about the cello.
Yeah.
And made a quote about music from the Bible and she kind of gave him a placating smile,
(01:03:15):
like a, yeah, okay.
So that was the second time she had denied God in front of him and he is completely driven
by what he thinks is God in his mind.
But he shows up at her door, she opens it, she tries to slam the door in a moment of
(01:03:36):
panic and he busts in and pushes her.
Her head hits a lamp, she falls to the floor, she hears whining from Bentley and it's not
depicted what happens to Bentley, but you know that he has been injured.
And then everything goes black for her.
(01:04:00):
So then we go to Lachlan, who shows up.
I now know why she was leaving the apartment.
She got the call that Ethel died.
Oh yes, that's right.
(01:04:23):
And so she had called Lachlan and asked him to meet her at the nursing home where she
was because they weren't moving her yet until she got there.
That's where she was supposed to be going.
So when Lachlan shows up at the nursing home and Sloane still isn't there, he gets this
really weird feeling.
(01:04:46):
And then he gets a call from, or he gets a text from Connor with some security footage
that was on Stan's security files, the guy that they went to the morgue for.
They got some photos and he sent it to Lachlan.
(01:05:14):
Long story short, he pieces together that the guy that was in his shop that day with
the saddle is the guy who killed Stan.
And he knows this because Abe killed Stan with Lachlan's edger.
All of his tools are like custom, so he recognized his own tool in the photo that Stan had taken
(01:05:42):
before his death.
And an uneasy feeling washes over him.
He realizes that something is wrong.
Lark is not answering her phone.
She would not miss this last moment with Ethel.
And him getting this piece of information really put him on high alert.
(01:06:04):
So then he tells Lark's parents that he's going to go looking for her.
And he asks Damien, her stepdad, to stay behind in case she shows up there.
And then he gives a description of the man he needs to watch out for.
When he does this, the nurse says, oh Steve, he left a couple hours ago.
(01:06:29):
And this gets Lachlan's attention because he's like, the fuck?
What do you mean, he was here?
She's like, yeah, we had some nursing shortages, so we hired through a temp agency, he showed
up.
And then they all share a knowing look and look at Ethel's room and they piece together
that it was not a peaceful death in her sleep, that Abe was there and killed her.
(01:06:57):
Which really sets Lachlan in motion.
He freaks out, he panics, he goes to her apartment.
And when she's not there, which Fiona and Rose he met on the way.
And they showed up too.
Fiona is a doctor.
So when they show up and he sees that Bentley is bleeding out on the floor, he tells Fiona,
(01:07:24):
save that fucking dog.
Don't you let him die.
Save the fucking dog.
And then Rose decides to go with Lachlan because she says, that's my girl, I'm not going to
leave her to the wolves.
This part kind of fucked me up a little bit because Fiona is telling her not to go, but
(01:07:50):
she's demanding that she goes and then she blurts out that she loves Fiona and he just
kind of freezes and doesn't say anything.
And you can see the hurt on Rose's face as they leave.
I totally wish he would have said it back.
It would have been a great moment, but that wouldn't have set us up for another book.
(01:08:13):
But they head out to go find him.
They've got Connor looking into Abe, but he's using an alias so they're really scrambling
for any kind of information they can find.
And he thinks about the last time that he had seen Abe and he was across the street
from the leather shop.
(01:08:35):
Or he was across the street from their apartment, sorry.
He was watching from there.
But him and Rose head over there, they break into his apartment and they find some photos
of how he'd been stalking all of them.
They kind of start piecing together like where she may be, so they head out to go find her.
(01:08:59):
And then we switch into Lark's point of view and she wakes up in a dark steel room chained
up.
Well, there's a chains.
I don't remember if she's actually chained up, but...
(01:09:21):
A light turns on and through a window she sees Abe, who is standing on the other side
telling her to relax and she's freaking out because she doesn't do small spaces.
(01:09:45):
He kind of tries to chant some Bible verses to her and she tells him pretty much that
he can shove it.
Lachlan shows up pointing a gun and he tells Lachlan that he has to make a choice.
(01:10:11):
It's either... he makes a comment about all these apps on people's phones and how you
can control everything and he made it a point to say that one app that he has can either
set off the bomb under Rowan and Sloan's car, who he sees through the GPS is heading their
way.
(01:10:32):
Or he can turn on the app that would turn on the batch oven that Sloan is currently
in.
But he has to choose one or the other will die.
I just want to say it really made it all of her I'm going to kill you with a batch oven
(01:10:58):
threats throughout the entire book.
Very ironic.
Honestly though.
Throughout the whole book she threatens everyone, especially Lachlan, that she's going to put
him in one of the muffin batch ovens and that's going to be his death.
And then she gets her ass locked in one.
(01:11:19):
So kind of weird.
But she does what she thinks she has to do and makes the decision for Lachlan because
he's... of course he's going to struggle to choose between his wife, the woman he fell
(01:11:40):
in love with, and his brother.
So she makes the decision for him.
And Abe accepts this decision and Lachlan's like, fuck you, no, don't turn on the oven
and he turns on the oven.
And she tells him that she loves him.
He tells her that he loves her.
(01:12:01):
And then the lights are turned out.
There's some gunshots and she's sweating like a pig in this oven that's been turned on.
That's getting real hot.
He's burning.
Yeah.
And then the lights come back on.
She kind of sees what happens.
(01:12:22):
And she hears Rose yelling at Lachlan because she sees him point the gun at the door hinge
and she says, Rose says, no, that could make it worse.
Shoot the glass.
He tells Lark to step back, shield her face.
He shoots out the glass.
There's like a rush of colere as the heat, you know, forces its way out of this window.
(01:12:48):
And he drags her out.
And when he does, she lays down on the cool floor to kind of cool off from being baked
alive.
And then she sees Abe dead on the floor with a bullet between his eyes.
Well thanks to Rose being there and spying, she was able to call Rowan and Sloan the moment
(01:13:14):
that she heard what was happening.
So they were able to pull over, get out of the car and get a safe distance away in case
a bomb went off.
Now that the threat has been neutralized, things fall into place and they can finally
go and live their lives.
(01:13:36):
First, they have to go to Leander's place to truly receive Lachlan's retirement.
In order to do this, Lark signs a contract on her, on behalf of her stepfather.
(01:13:59):
And Leander accepts this and lets Lachlan go.
In order to celebrate, they have a few beers.
Leander doesn't get more than one beer in before he's flat on his ass again.
And Lachlan is like, Lark, we talked about this.
(01:14:25):
She said no, technically I agreed to tell you if I was going to drug anymore muffins.
I didn't say anything about beer.
He was like, fuck.
Okay, woman.
And then before they leave, he gives her a present and he tells her to go look behind
(01:14:47):
the Constantine poster where the hole in the wall used to be and he had inserted a safe.
In this safe, there was a little heart in resin that he had made for her.
And then, to top it off, he gets down on one knee and she's like, what are you doing?
(01:15:11):
He says I'm proposing.
And he states that he is proposing because the first time they did this, it wasn't a
matter of what she wanted, it was a matter of what she felt she had to do.
And he wants to propose because he wants to give her a real choice.
(01:15:33):
We can either start over and pretend we met on the balcony that night.
We can get divorced and he shows her divorce papers.
Or we can continue on the path that we're on.
She pretty much tells him to shove those divorce papers up his ass and then takes the ring
(01:15:59):
and they go on a honeymoon where they really wanted to go throughout the whole book.
Was it Indonesia?
I think it was.
Because she had a thing for the orangutans for some reason.
But they go on this honeymoon.
(01:16:21):
They enjoy their time away.
And then their last night there, Lark has a surprise for him.
And I forgot that this was in the trigger warnings whenever I read this and so I was
also surprised.
As surprised as Lachlan was.
(01:16:45):
But she spreads, he walks out of the room to where she is and she has divorce papers
spread out all over the bed.
And she's in a robe and she starts slowly taking this robe off little by little, shoulder
by shoulder.
And he's really getting into it.
(01:17:08):
When she drops the entire robe, she states, I'm still pissed that you tried to serve me
divorce papers.
And when the robe drops, there is a strap on around her.
(01:17:30):
And bros into it.
And I'm not gonna get into detail about this one, but yeah, they get after it.
You can put two and two together.
Yeah.
But she does tell him, I'm still pissed about these papers so we're going to...
(01:17:51):
I'm going to fuck you on this bed on top of these divorce papers.
And you're gonna finish all over them because that's what they're worth.
Don't you ever serve them to me again.
And we also get praise kink here because she starts calling him good boy.
And at the end, they switch and he's back in charge.
(01:18:17):
But there is that happening.
I have read a lot of smut books, but I have not had that happen yet until now.
All I can say about it is it may not be what I'm into, but I was not surprised by it.
(01:18:46):
Like I've read so much smut at this point, it didn't bother me.
Not my cup of tea, but...
This was only my second smut book, so I didn't know what to think.
You gotta start reading the trigger warnings, Allie.
I do.
That was at the end of the book.
(01:19:07):
How am I supposed to remember that after like 20 something chapters?
I mean honestly, I forgot about it too.
But yeah, and then that's how it ends.
It's them doing it a final time.
I'm ready for the next book though.
(01:19:29):
Me too.
And Brynn gives us a little sneak peek at the next book at the end of this one.
Just like she did with Butcher and Blackbird and Leather and Lark.
But she adds at the end of the book,
Rose looks at Abe Meade, who lies dead on the floor.
(01:19:50):
She focuses on Lachlan and Lark, who are wrapped around each other, and Rose hopes that this
will be the last big moment of trouble for them.
Rose glances down at her shirt.
There's a small hole and a few drops of blood, but Rose can feel the bullet.
She lies down on the floor, but no one notices.
Fionne bursts in, calling her name, but it gets quieter and quieter.
(01:20:13):
In the final moments before she loses consciousness, she sees Fionne in the distance.
That's what we're left with.
Until February when it comes out.
The next one will come out though, eventually.
And you'll get a review then!
(01:20:34):
Waiting it as soon as it comes out.
Same.
Alright.
So that is Leather and Lark by Bryn Weaver.
Leather and Lark.
Love the cover arts on these books.
(01:20:58):
So book opinions.
I love it.
I think it's my favorite one.
I haven't read very many, but it's my favorite one.
I loved this book.
I wish that we had gotten more backstory on Lachlan's childhood.
(01:21:31):
All that's really said about why he killed his father is...
He just was like an unpleasant man.
He doesn't really talk about him.
Or really his mother.
I would have liked more about that.
For sure.
Because I like to understand the backstories, but overall I loved this book.
(01:21:55):
I think I'm a fan of Bryn Weaver because I've liked both books.
I preferred Butcher and Blackbird, but that's because I liked their methods and the competition
aspect.
Yeah.
But I definitely think I'm a fan of Bryn Weaver.
For sure.
(01:22:15):
Me too.
Overall, I give it like an 8 out of 10.
I say about a 9 out of 10.
I really liked this book.
What did you think about content wise?
I gave it an 8 out of 10 solely because of what you said.
(01:22:36):
I wish we had a little bit more background on the Caen boys.
Yeah, that seems to be a thing in this book.
There's more background on the women than the males.
Yeah.
That's all I wish.
That was the only issue I had with it was that we just didn't know very much about Lachlan
or really any of them.
(01:22:57):
Maybe in the next one we'll find out a little bit more.
I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10 on content.
On Spice for me, as somebody who has read a ton of these books, I'm going to give it
like a six and a half.
I'm giving it the same thing I gave the last one because it's essentially one sex scene
(01:23:23):
and you wait till the end to get to it.
The scene itself was written so well.
Like the writing of it was great.
It was just there really wasn't a whole lot of it in this book, but about a six and a
half, seven out of ten.
As a as an amateur smart reader, new smart reader, I gave it a 10 out of 10 just because
(01:23:51):
of the details of it and all that.
Even it wasn't pages and pages, actually I take that back, chapters and chapters like
Butcher and Blackbird.
I don't know, it didn't catch me off guard like Butcher and Blackbird did I guess.
Maybe that's why.
(01:24:11):
It wasn't as intense.
The pegging did, but the rest of it wasn't as intense as Butcher and Blackbird.
The more you read these books, the less it's going to catch you off guard because even
the pegging for me, I was like, oh, OK, strap on, cool.
Let's go.
(01:24:34):
For romance, I'm going to give it about an eight out of ten.
It had more romance than the first one, but I've also read other books that have had that
really got you in your heart, like make you cry romance.
So I'm going to give it like an eight out of ten.
I gave it a nine out of ten just because Loughlin wanting to earn forgiveness instead of just
(01:25:00):
automatically getting it really, really got me.
Like I thought that was really sweet.
I did like that.
And I liked all the forehead kisses and how he wanted to wave.
He was very, very affectionate.
The writing, I'm giving a ten out of ten on that because I like her writing style.
I like her comedic factors.
(01:25:22):
It's so well written.
I 100 percent agree with you on that.
That is the same rating that I gave.
I love her.
So for characters, like the characters themselves, I'm going to give about an eight and a half
(01:25:44):
out of ten just because there's not a lot of room for development or character arcs.
And also because, again, we didn't get a whole lot of backstory on Loughlin.
Like I want to know what happened in their childhood, which maybe she's waiting until
the last book to get into that.
(01:26:04):
But I really want to know.
I need to know some of it because I need to know why the guys are the way they are.
Why are they killers?
That's what I need to know.
I would have to say the character rating for me is high, only for Ethel.
I give it a nine.
Ethel was great.
(01:26:25):
She was my favorite character.
She was only in it a few times, but she won my heart.
She was my favorite character and she wasn't even a main character.
Exactly.
She was written so well that Brynn made us love her in just a few little lines.
Her writing skills.
I love her writing style.
Yes.
(01:26:45):
It keeps me focused on it because it's very easy for me to lose interest.
But the way she writes, it's very easy for me to hold interest in her books.
She's comedic.
She's serious, but she also dives into like real issues.
And she writes the jealousy so real in both books.
(01:27:07):
Like, I mean, in real life, none of us are, I can't say none of us.
Most of us are not going to go after a woman who just talked to our man in a restaurant.
But the rest of it was very accurate.
As always, thanks for listening and we will see y'all Thursday on Crime and Passion.
When we discuss our next true crime case, the James Bird killing in Jasper, Texas.
(01:27:33):
Don't forget to head over to our podcast to listen to a full chapter by chapter breakdown
of this book and many others.
You can find our link in the comments.
Be sure to like and follow us on social media and hit that subscribe button before you go.
We'll see y'all soon.
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